- Violet
- Mar 2, 2020
- 4 min read
We're already a third of the way into the semester, so there is quite a bit that I have to catch you up on before I can start posting updates in real time. Our group has been meeting to discuss pipeline, story, characters, and everything else in between and beyond since early December.
Our short's working title is "Monster Roommates", and we're aiming to have something that is 3-5 minutes long. For a quick run synopsis, Monster Roommates is about a human (Mark) who has a date, and his roommates are all monsters - we have a zombie that is an extreme couch potato, the zombie's severed hand which is almost dog-like and acts partially as comic relief, we have a 'smart monster' which will be a Vampire, but will have a more anthropomorphic bat design, and finally our yeti character, who is a massive dunce, but is very sweet. Currently he is determined to be a shrub man, with leaves instead of fur, though I am still pushing hair simulation tests in hopes of keeping hair on him instead (though either outcome is going to be great). Mark has tidied up the apartment and is about to leave to pick up his s/o, and warns his roommates to be good and not mess up the apartment.
Naturally, within moments after Mark's departure, the monsters accidentally set off a chain reaction of events that completely wreck the apartment. We then get a montage of them scrambling to fix and clean it before Mark returns, along with plenty of gags related to each monster type (zombie hand included). When Mark and his date arrive, they open the door to a shocking sight - the apartment is clean, but by monster standards. The lighting is spooky, furniture is crooked and worn, cobwebs for curtains etc. The monsters usher the couple to the table set with the monsters' attempts at food and romance, and it isn't until the zombie burps, killing most of the flowers on the table, that the tension is finally broken as Mark's s/o proceeds to let out a burp that kills the last flower. Laughter and good times ensue, and we get a pleasant montage of the games and such that they all enjoy while the credits roll.
For now I will only post my work, but know that obviously what I have is a small part of much, much more concept art, story boards, and script writing. I will start linking to those things as soon as I can. Personally I have been doing some concept art for the yeti. These are earlier iterations, so he still has fur, but we still intend to keep his base shape, and the horns are replaced by branches.
My first work was this:
I was working majorly off of this concept we found on Pinterest. We liked the idea of the hair not covering the body entirely, partially because that would be more technically manageable for hair sim as well. I tried to pay attention to how his legs would work, but moreso was testing out eye size, horn shape, and the underbite. Was trying to find characteristics that would make him huggable and lovable.
I also roughed out a lineup of all of our characters in silhouette format, though this was clearly much rougher. You can see how my initial yeti idea was quite a bit more brutish looking. Also, the zombie likely never leaves the couch so we often drew him in that position.
After some feedback from the group, I went back and did more with the yeti concept. Other group members were doing concepts for the other monsters, as well as the yeti, but the yeti was my focus. I was asked to do more action poses, so I went back to the skeleton and tried to draw him with rigging a bit more in mind.
This is what I came up with. The legs are more functional, and with the bottom left in particular people were starting to have the "awww" reaction I was hoping for.
But concept art is not my main role in this short, of course. As we begin to get more into production, I will become more and more focused on technical aspects, namely VFX. The zombie burp is something we already know will be a major plot point, so I have already been in Houdini 18 trying to get some nasty green burps going. So far I feel like I'm taking an entire toolkit to something that really only needs, like, a hammer, but we're making progress:
This was the first pass. It's way too wispy and I was fighting velocity rather than working with it.
This was the second. We have more volume, but we want it to maintain more shape and have more details like bubbles and such.
I also am figuring out hair simulation in Houdini and, as I mentioned earlier, am getting some tests out to convince people the yeti hair is still possible. However, it may work out that I can use the same simulation physics, and simply have leaves instead of hair. Hopefully this research will be helpful either way essentially.
This was my first rough render of a test with wind on the generated hair with clumping, curling, and length/density changes. I also animated it, but...
That didn't turn out so great haha. The hair that doesn't disappear looks great, and my group is particularly happy with the tuft in the front, but ideally we don't want the hair disappearing at all! I need to troubleshoot it and will do more breakdowns of these particular VFX pieces in separate posts but for now this is already far too long for even my attention span.
You're all caught up! At least on my visible contributions. The group as a whole is really coming along nicely, and I look forward to keeping you updated on what we do next.
Cheers,
-Violet